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Lysander Spooner

Lysander Spooner Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Lysander Spooner Quotes

“A man's 'original and natural right' to make all contracts that are 'intrinsically obligatory,' and to coerce the fulfillment of them, is one of the most valuable and indispensable of all human possessions.”

MenHumansNaturalOriginalsPossessionValuableFulfillmentContractsIndispensableCoerce
Book:A Letter to Grover Cleveland on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpation and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People
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“If two individuals enter into a contract to commit trespass, theft, robbery or murder upon a third, the contract is unlawful and void, simply because it is a contract to violate natural justice, or men's natural rights.”

IfsMenTwoIndividualNaturalJusticeRightsThirdsMurderCommitContractsVoidTheftRobberyNatural RightsUnlawfulNatural Justice
Book:The unconstitutionality of slavery: including parts first and second
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“The mental capacity of a person to make reasonable contracts, is the only criterion, by which to determine his legal capacity to make obligatory contracts. And his mental capacity to make reasonable contracts is certainly not to be determined by the fact that he is, or is not, twenty-one years of age.”

YearsPersonsFactsAgeCapacityTwentiesDetermineDeterminedReasonableContractsCriteriaTwenty One
Book:A Letter to Grover Cleveland on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpation and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People
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“And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.”

MenYearsPersonsMadeWholeThreeNumbersMillionsGenerationsYears AgoConstitutionBoundsContractsNeverthelessEightyBindingThree Generations
Book:The collected works of Lysander Spooner
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“No man can delegate,... any right of arbitrary dominion over a 3rd person; for that would imply a right in the 1st person, not only to make the 3rd person his slave, but also a right to dispose of him as a slave to still other persons. Any contract to do this is necessarily a criminal one...To call such a contract a “constitution” does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity.”

MenPersonsDoeStillsConstitutionAddSlaveCriminalsContractsArbitraryDominionValidityDelegatesCriminality
Author:Lysander Spooner
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